Let's not forget it was Krause who selected Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in the '87 draft, when Jordan wanted Joe Wolf (career stats here, in case you need a laugh). So you'd expect Krause to be high on the guest list for Saturday's ceremonies. That's not the case.

I don't have a great desire to be there," Krause said.

He'll tell you it's nothing to do with Jordan, that he's protesting the HOF as long as longtime assistant coach Tex Winter isn't in. But it's not hard to read more into his words, especially when he says how he'd drop his protest in a second for Jerry Sloan.

If Michael called, no," Krause said. "If Jerry called me, that would be a tough one. But the answer is no...We were not close, and we're not close today.

We've learned in the last decade that MJ might not have been the most likable person, but to go so far as to estrange the man to whom you owe part of your legend (and vice versa, of course) is saying something.

Sorting Fact From Friction [Boston Globe]

Rice explained that the All-Star chumps you see today, can't compare to genuine American heroes of Jim Rice's day. They didn't have the rock and roll and the drugs back then, so their old timey brand of baseball was pure and good. Unlike the kind you see from that hippie Derek Jeter.

Guys that I played against and with, these guys you're talking about cannot compare ... We didn't have the baggy uniforms. We didn't have the dreadlocks," Rice said. "It was a clean game, and now they're setting a bad example for the young guys." [...]

Flexing the muscles in his right arm, Rice said, "That's all the steroids you need. ... It's called God-given talent."

So remember kids—say your prayers and eat your vitamins and you too can wait 15 years to get into the Hall of Fame on a sympathy vote. Then you can badmouth the existing generation of baseball players all you like.

Hall of Famer Rice takes big leaguers to task [AP/USA Today]

The Hall of Fame is literally just a hallway in the back of Cobo Center, a place that most Michiganders avoid like Fort Wayne. (The only thing useful that ever happens there is the Detroit Auto Show.) Because there is no building and (obviously) no money coming in, the directors must have mistakenly believed that did not have to file taxes for the last three years, so now they're under investigation by the state Attorney General's office. Four board members, including the Chairman, resigned last week as a result. So now, their genius idea to escape financial ruin is to sell the bronze plaques that honor the state's greatest sports legends.

Of course, if you sell the bronze plaques then you don't really have a Hall of Fame, do you? You just have a hallway. Then again, that's more than most business in the state of Michigan can say these days. That poor, poor state.

Michigan Sports Hall of Fame sidelined by debt [Detroit Free Press]

So Elise and Dave went to Cooperstown to see Henderson and Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame because, according to the Wall Street Journal's Photo Journal, the happy couple met through a discussion about Henderson. How exactly that fateful conversation led to holy matrimony, we here at Weddings & Celebrations aren't quite sure.

On a related note, Henderson said in his induction speech that he would like to be remembered as "that kid from the inner city that played the game with all his heart and never took the game for granted." Till death do they part, one happy couple might instead envision him simply as a mensch in a babushka.

It's not like young people can decide these things themselves.

*****

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin Styles, brought to you by the KissCam. If princess cards are all you've ever wanted, then this one's for you.

,

The biggest voice—and the one that is possibly the most directly affected—is Hank Aaron's. He was widely quoted this weekend for saying that anyone who has been proven to use steroids should be banned from the Hall of Fame. That would conveniently eliminate both the man who broke his biggest record (Barry Bonds) and the man most likely to break it in the future (Alex Rodriguez) ... but not Mark McGwire, who is currently being "banned" anyway. He also wants the 102 names from the infamous list of 2003 released, as if that would solve anything.

"My feeling has always been the same – the game of baseball has no place for cheaters," Aaron said Sunday morning. "There's no place in the Hall of Fame for people who cheat."

He's right cheating is bad. But is using steroids really cheating? Let's ask another current Hall of Famer:

"I certainly don't think you can stand up there and hit a Nolan Ryan 100-mph fastball just because you put something in your arm or took a pill," he said.

Oh, wait ... that was Hank Aaron again. But at the same time, Aaron has no problem with Pete Rose joining the club. In the same impromptu press conference, Aaron said that Rose belongs in Cooperstown and he would like to seem him there. He says that Pete's situation is different than the steroids question. (It is. It's worse.) But if Pete would just ask for forgiveness and admits his faults, this could all be over.

There's the rub, isn't it? Pete Rose doesn't want forgiveness and will never say he's sorry. That's always been part of the "conditions" for the removal of his lifetime ban and that's why it hasn't happened yet. Even if Pete does get the ban lifted, he would be relying on the Veteran's Committee to get him into Cooperstown, which is not a lock. Aaron and two prominent former teammates of Rose (guess who?) have been lobbying Selig on his behalf, but there are just as many Hall members who want to see Rose humbled first. Maybe he broke one of their records?

If there's one thing that induction weekend never fails to reminds us of, it's that there is no more arrogant group of people on the planet than Baseball's Hall of Famers. (Except maybe the baseball writers who put them there.) If you think Rickey Henderson is the new king of that mountain, you're sadly mistaken. (See also: Reggie Jackson.)

MLB commissioner Bud Selig mulling pardon for hit king Pete Rose [NY Daily News]
Aaron wants past steroid users exposed, banned from Hall [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
MLB: Aaron says Rose belongs in Hall [Honolulu Advertiser]
Rickey has last laugh [Daily Star]

Wilstein has been nominated for the Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink Award by the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, which is unstinting in its efforts to be wrong about pretty much everything. The award recognizes "meritorious contributions to baseball writing." What Wilstein did, to put it simply, was cast suspicion on a man doing something perfectly legal with his own body, thus setting the terms of a story that has ended with federal investigators tap-dancing on the Fourth Amendment, merrily committing crimes far greater than anything they were investigating in the first place. What exactly is meritorious about that?

Go back and read the story that started it all, in 1998. This was in August, in the teeth of the Sosa-McGwire pursuit of Roger Maris' record. Wilstein built an entire feature around a bottle of Androstenedione that he spotted on the top shelf of McGwire's locker. Andro was perfectly legal and available over the counter at the time, but that didn't stop Wilstein from whipping up a little hysteria:

Sitting on the top shelf of Mark McGwire's locker, next to a can of Popeye spinach and packs of sugarless gum, is a brown bottle labeled Androstenedione.

For more than a year, McGwire says, he has been using the testosterone-producing pill, which is perfectly legal in baseball but banned in the NFL, Olympics and the NCAA.

No one suggests that McGwire wouldn't be closing in on Roger Maris' home run record without the over-the-counter drug. After all, he hit 49 homers without it as a rookie in 1987, and more than 50 each of the past two seasons.

But the drug's ability to raise levels of the male hormone, which builds lean muscle mass and promotes recovery after injury, is seen outside baseball as cheating and potentially dangerous.

The story established the model for everything that has followed: insinuation, heaps of pseudo-science, a whiff of Drug War-era moralizing, the assumption that use is the same thing as abuse, the fat paragraph of scary side effects in which the writer essentially holds a flashlight under his chin and goes whooooooo, a quote or two from Gary Wadler, who remains the go-to drug warrior for journalists too embarrassed to quote someone named Dick Pound.

This isn't meritorious journalism. It's Nancy Reagan in newsprint.

Wilstein went on to become one of journalism's most persistent steroid crusaders, kibitzing baseball's evolving drug policy at every turn, finding an excuse to summon the specter of PEDs even when he was writing about tennis ("At a time when other pro sports have been beset by problems with steroids, the arrests of stars and confrontations with fans, tennis stands to gain as a civil alternative") and, I shit you not, the Iditarod.

"No one has been found to be doping their dogs, but there are suspicions among some mushers that it's been done, if not in the race, then in training. Anabolic steroids and blood doping - the injection of whole blood, packed blood cells or blood substitutes - could help make the dogs stronger and enhance their endurance and resilience."

He helped create a phony atmosphere of crisis that certain overeager federal investigators could exploit to such an extent that their flagrantly illegal seizure of baseball's 2003 steroid tests results — which included the results of players outside the scope of their search warrant, not to mention records for people with no connection to the BALCO case or even baseball — was mostly cheered. (I wonder if people will cheer when this case shows up before the Supreme Court.) When Sammy Sosa's name was whispered into the ear of The New York Times earlier this week, no one, that I saw, called for an investigation into the leaks (a crime for which someone will eventually get tossed in the federal hoosegow), and no one, that I saw, expressed any outrage that Sosa's name emerged only after a lot of people had their Fourth Amendment rights trampled. Instead, people demanded more names, more names, more names — hell, the whole damn list.

Wilstein didn't do any of this himself, of course, but this is his legacy as much as it is anyone's. (Geoff Baker, Mariners beat writer for the Seattle Times and the chairman of BWAA's Seattle chapter, called Wilstein one of "a select few" who worked diligently to uncover doping in baseball.) Wilstein is retired from sportswriting these days, seemingly content to be turned into an instrument by which his former profession simultaneously flays itself for not bulldogging the steroids story hard enough and congratulates itself for starting the conversation. He now writes children's stories.

McGwire Author Wilstein Nominated for Baseball Writers' Award [Bloomberg]
A Hall of Fame Find by a Sports Reporter [The New York Times]
Legal in baseball [SI.com]

See if you can cut through this wall of logic. Rose was on the Dan Patrick Show today and he explained why he thinks steroids are despicable. They affect records and records are sacred. (He's the hit king, so he should know.) They're illegal (he knows about that too) and they destroy the integrity of the game. (Yes, he actually used the word "integrity.") Most importantly, none of those things would apply to a manager who might have placed a friendly wager on his own team. I mean, how could a manager possibly have an influence on "the direct outcome" of a baseball game?

So that means he doesn't think Alex Rodriguez—an admitted PED user—should be allowed in the Hall of Fame, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa ... let's not be hasty here! He did still hit all those home runs. And you can't take away Barry Bonds' "sacred" home run record, just because he might have done something not good to get there. Rose says he would back A-Rod's candidacy for the Hall of Fame, even if he did do something far, far worse than betting on baseball.

Doesn't every man deserves a second chance?

Pete Rose Talks Roids, A-Rod Pitch Tipping, and Hit Streaks to Dan Patrick [Sports Radio Interviews]
Pete Rose: A-Rod shouldn't get cheated out of Hall of Fame [New York Daily News]
Pete Rose says Alex Rodriguez deserves to be in Hall of Fame [ESPN]

Jordan is seriously upset that the Hall of Fame would induct him into their shrine, because that implies that the voters believe his career to be over ... which it has been. For years. He knows those Wizards games actually counted, right?

"This is kind of a love-hate thing for me," Jordan said. "It's a great compliment and great respect, but for me, I always wanted to be able to have you think that I could always go back and play the game of basketball. As long as you have that thought, you never know what can happen. You never know what my abilities can do."

"So to me, the Hall of Fame is like, it's over and done with. You can't ever put a uniform back on. It's the total end of your basketball career. It's a great accomplishment and I know I don't walk away from it, but I didn't want to be up here so quickly.

"I wanted to be up here when I was 70 years old, 80 years old. But I'm 45 and I still think I can play. You guys don't know if I can or can't, but at least I've got you thinking that way."

Oh, sweetheart. Trust me ... no one thinks that way.

Jordan Not Thrilled About This Hall of Fame Stuff [The Sporting Blog]
Induction a 'love-hate thing' for Jordan [Philly Inquirer]

No new blood other than Rickey managed to get the 5% of votes required to remain the ballot. A few got no votes at all. (It's okay. I still love you, Ron Gant.)

It's just as well, though, because now those players don't have to suffer the indignity of 15 years spent hovering in the 20-25% range, miles away from induction—or worse, the 60% range where you know that another 40 or 50 votes could put you over the top, but the old curmudgeons of the BBWAA won't die off fast enough for you to move up the ranks. Just ask Bert Blyleven what that's like.

But the real crime is that we have to sit through 12 more years of the Mark McGwire debate. (And many more after his Congressional lying buddies become eligible.) McGwire, the eighth-leading home run hitter of all time, got 118 votes. That's ten fewer than he got last year and about 300 fewer than he needs for admission.

Ten years ago, Mark McGwire was America's greatest champion, but now he's just a stupid musclehead who rescued his sport only so that he could destroy it. He will pay for the sins of an entire generation of baseball players who may or may not have taken shortcuts through a system specifically designed to encourage and reward such behavior. (And to those who try to say now that his accomplishments are "marginal" or "one-dimensional" with or without steroids? Stop it. You're not kidding anyone.)

Everyone has an opinion about McGwire and steroids and the times we live in, and he does have some vocal supporters. But for most, it's a reverse protest vote against ... what exactly? Because he didn't tell you what you wanted to hear at that Congressional hearing, even though you don't even know what you wanted to hear and, honestly, you didn't want to hear it anyway. You didn't want to hear it in 1998 and you don't want to hear it now. I don't see any of the people crying about the inflated numbers of the late '90s and '00s lining up to reward Don Mattingly or Alan Trammell, clearly among the best of their "clean era." You wanted big numbers? Well, guess what—you got 'em. Now you gotta live with it, unless you want a Hall that only contains David Eckstein.

Maybe by the time his eligibility winds down, enough people will have given up or forgotten or enough new people who don't care will be given a vote, and McGwire will sneak in the way Jim Rice did. (Maybe Rice finally got in as a subtle dig at McGwire himself?) Perhaps in a few years when guys like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are being denied, people will see how ridiculous they are being and open the Hall up to all the players who rose above the best of their times (and many others times too.)

By the way, the only person who didn't weigh in this year? Baseball writer Mark McGuire, of the Albany Times-Union, who I think showed admirable restraint by staying out of it.

From Agee to Zisk - the “No Votes” of the Baseball Hall of Fame [Home Run Derby]
McGwire does not pick up Hall support [MLB.com]
Steward: Is it time to re-evaluate Mark McGwire's status? [Berryessa Sun]
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens could get Hall snub [LA Times]
McGwire snub telling [Seattle Times]
Voters Cannot Forgive or Forget Suspicions of McGwire’s Drug Use [NY Times]

1) In June 1999, when Henderson was playing with the Mets, he saw reporters running around the clubhouse before a game. He asked a teammate what was going on and he was told that Tom Robson, the team’s hitting coach, had just been fired. Henderson said, “Who’s he?”

10) A reporter asked Henderson if Ken Caminiti’s estimate that 50 percent of Major League players were taking steroids was accurate. His response was, “Well, Rickey’s not one of them, so that’s 49 percent right there.”

14) The morning after the Sox finished off their 2004 World Series sweep against St. Louis, Henderson called someone in the organization looking for tickets to Game 6 at Fenway Park.

17) OK, I know everyone has been waiting for it. Alas, according to both parties involved, it’s not true. I wish it were. Heck, both Rickey Henderson and John Olerud have said they wish it were true. But it just didn’t happen.

The story went that a few weeks into Henderson’s stint with the Mariners, he walked up to Olerud at the batting cage and asked him why he wore a batting helmet in the field. Olerud explained that he had an aneurysm at nine years old and he wore the helmet for protection. Legend goes that Henderson said, “Yeah, I used to play with a guy that had the same thing.” Legend also goes that Olerud said, “That was me, Rickey.”

Classic, Rickey. Another story that I would love to add to that list, is Rickey Henderson going into the Hall of Fame as a San Diego Surf Dawg. He played his final professional season with them in one vain attempt to keep his major league career alive, and the Golden Baseball League (which the Surf Dogs won with Rickey in 2005) is offering him $1 million to chisel a Surf Dog hat on his plaque. Please accept, Rickey. Rickey is his own man, and shouldn't Rickey's plaque be better than everyone else's?

"The Definitive Rickey Henderson: The 25 Best Stories of "Rickey Being Rickey." [Fan IQ]
Surfs up for Rickey Henderson, HOF [No Joshin]

You can spend the rest of the night staring at that ruined ball, dreaming of a better tomorrow, and praying for Chris Snyder.

Also, if anyone is not doing anything firework-related and would like to sit inside and watch sports all weekend while writing on this site, please feel free to hit me up.

Considering this is the freewheeling managerial style I'm adopting during this transitional period, the chances of you getting paid before 2010 are rather slim. Those who are interested, however, should feel free to drop a line.

Dan Patrick Interviews Jeff Idelson [SI.com]

For example, his considerable deliberation on Goose Gossage.

"Gossage — During a visit to Yankee Stadium in the late 1970s, I wanted to talk to Goose but was told he was cruel and gruff to reporters. I sheepishly introduced myself and said I was from Colorado, his home state, and he talked pleasantly for 30 minutes. We've been good friends since. I would vote for him even if he wasn't deserving."

So that's taking the process seriously! We would like to know who else was kind and pleasant to Woody Paige in the past; might help us handicap Hall of Fame races. We suppose this eliminates Rita Ragone.

Woody Paige Is Thorough [Vegas Watch]

Back in 2000, Williams was cited for walking naked outside his hotel and, well, yankin' it.

BUZZLE fondly remembers Williams found fondling himself furiously in Ft. Myers. Police were called to the hotel after many guests reported the retired skipper walking around naked and masturbating outside in public - instead of doing it in the decency of his own room.

We very much hope Williams remembers to include this incident in his induction speech. There won't be a dry eye in the house.

Dick Williams Goes From Hall Of Shame Masturbator To Hall Of Famer [Sports By Brooks]

Dick Vitale was judged as the most newsworthy name among the sixteen. Is there no one at ESPN who has any shame? Come on now.

Dominique Wilkins was nominated last year, too, but somehow didn't make it. I can't imagine that it's possible, but if Dick Vitale makes it in and Dominique Wilkins does not, I'm going to organize a mass Deadspin field trip to the Hall of Fame, where we'll all gather around the building's perimeter and then treat the Hall like R. Kelly treats 14-year-old girls.

I'm not saying that Vitale is completely unworthy. He's created a personality for himself that's become, for some reason, quite popular, and he's worked hard to promote the game. There's something to be said for that. But if Dominique had to wait a year, then Dick Vitale damn sure better have to wait a year, too.

Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame [HoopHall.com]

According to a statement filed by police, Albert, in addition to repeatedly threatening his lady-friend, actually used a GPS device to stalk her. The woman told investigators that she found a GPS tracking device that had fallen off of her car in January. She says that Albert had been showing up everywhere she went, and believes that he placed the device on her car. He also left a message on her answering machine apologizing for doing "all that tracking stuff." So good luck with the case, Albert.

When the AP asked him for comment, Albert said, "You didn't write a story about my Hall of Fame induction. You guys never report the good stuff that I do."

I'm not sure if he's referring to something that's currently happening in Darren Daulton's alternate universe, but Albert only got 40 of the necessary 390 votes to get into the hall. But you know what, in a tip of the cap to both Darren Daulton and Albert Belle: Congratulations, Albert, on your induction to the hall of fame.

Stalking: 21st Century Style [Saved by the Blog]
Police: Belle tracked ex-girlfriend with GPS device [macon.com]

The AP reports aren't offering a lot of details at the moment. It just says that police took him into custody after his ex told police officers that he had been stalking her. I don't know if that means he was camped out outside of her apartment, if he tried to run her down like she was a trick-or-treater, or that he spent an hour trying to convince her that because he hit 50 homeruns and had 50 doubles in a year, that makes him a member of the 50/50 Club.

But no matter what he did, you'd have to assume that this will not help his chances of getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Right or wrong, hall voters are going to take into consideration things like hitting a fan in the chest with a baseball, using a corked bat, a DUI arrest, throwing a baseball at a photographer, and, his latest achievement, these allegations of stalking. That's a pretty impressive list, right there. That should get him into some kind of hall of fame.

Former slugger Belle accused of stalking ex-girlfriend [SI.com]
Albert Belle Gambles [The 700 Level]

I've never been big on Hall of Fame discussions. It's fun to talk about, but I find it hard to believe that there's an absolute line that can be drawn that one could point to and say "everyone above this line is good enough, and everyone below this line is not."

But one interesting HOF argument centers around former Cowboys WR, current ESPN babbler, and constant source of amusement, Michael Irvin. Irvin's QB on the Dallas Super bowl teams, Troy Aikman, got in today. Emmitt Smith is a lock when he becomes eligible. Irvin, in his first year of eligibility, did not make the cut.

Also getting the call today along with Aikman were Harry Carson, John Madden, Warren Moon, Reggie White, and Rayfield Wright. Among getting left out with Irvin were L.C. Greenwood, Russ Grimm, Art Monk, Derrick Thomas, and Thurman Thomas.

Sutter threw the final pitch of the last St. Louis Cardinals team to win a World Series, in 1982, striking out Gorman Thomas. (There is a video out there, hopefully not on the Internet, of a 12-year-old version of us broadcasting this very moment over highlights; we screamed with a most high pitch.) Sutter pioneered the split-fingered fastball, as well as the closer-centric technique of housing woodland animals in one's facial hair.

Baseball Hall Of Fame [Official Site]

(Full ballot results are here. Jim Rice finished in second place; McGee's off the ballot now, dagnabit. But hey, Walt Weiss got a vote.)

We love it when old white men get in middle-aged scuffles. It's all rumors, but still: Mustache rides. That's funny.

Ryno, Raffy, Cindy Love Triangle [Can't Stop The Bleeding]